#5 cyl in my 1989 302 EFI truck. The piston skirting broke, scarred up the walls a bit but not much the truck still ran fine but with just a slight rattle. with the cylender scarred just a bit(cant feel to much but can catch finger nail on a few spots below the stroke of the piston) is it practical to put it back togather with a cylender hone and new piston rings? or ??

 

or?? Not! If it scarred that bad it will not last very long. If the skirt broke on the piston you already have too much piston to wall clearence and it will only be worse next time. With too much piston to wall, the piston rocks in the bore and it will cause it to break or crack. I would rebuild it.

 

rebuilding is probably the best. I hope you aren't suggesting putting the old piston back in?? If the score is very minor and you are replacing the piston with a new one/new rings, you can probably get by for many miles. I think this is one of those what do you really want to do things. This solution might get you 20K more out of it (could possibly also go 200K), rebuilding the whole things (and reboring), will give you peace of mind given you do it right. What is your objective?

 

i'd like to just fix the truck and sell it, but dont want to spend arm and leg puting all that money into it and not keeping it. The truck is in mint condition just that darn motor...hmmm I could put an old pistion from another cylender in that cylender and see how much movement i get from the piston to the wall. or i'm sure there is a tool that would tell me how true the cylender wall still is if its warped too much.

 

well it's not that it is warped, but rather that it is out of round. Generally it takes a lot of abuse to run it out of round. There is a special tool to measure cylinder bore and whether it is out of round...costs a bit though...but you have it for life then.

why would you think it is out of round? any damage from the piston skirt would lead to scoring and not really have to do with being out of round.

If you are looking for a cheap fix to get it running, why not buy a Federal Mogul replacement piston from Summit...they cost under $10. You will need new rings and have it pressed on the rod. After a nice honing, I'll bet you could be underway and be problem free for a little while at least.

I'll qualify all of this with saying the long term solution is to rebuild. You could also purchase a used motor from a junkyard and solve all your problems for 100k or more.

 

thanks for all of your advice guys.